Chapter 23

"Fusion? What does that mean?"

Su Lin was in Medises's arms. At those words, his knees nearly buckled, and he almost fell back into his senior's embrace.

"Your body contains Zerg genes, but Zerg genes are much stronger than human ones. They can contaminate the genes of other species and transform them into Zerg," Medises said. Without giving himself away, he leaned forward slightly and greedily inhaled the honeyed scent wafting from this foolish, innocent larva.

"That's fusion."

He said.

Su Lin's heart went ice-cold.

"Then can I still be saved... no, I mean, is there any way to reverse the fusion process?" Su Lin's face turned deathly pale, and he even began to speak incoherently.

"Senior, you know I absolutely can't fuse completely into a Zerg. I can't become a bug. I'm so weak, you can tell at a glance that my rank is low. I wouldn't survive among the Zerg, and you wouldn't want to be saddled with a burden like me for the rest of your life either, would you..."

"Don't be afraid."

Medises spoke to the trembling young man in front of him.

At first, his voice sounded only a little hoarse, with no other emotion to speak of.

But Su Lin, with his back to him, would never know how fervently Medises was gazing at him.

His overwhelming hunger and thirst had even caused this Blood Wing, renowned for his perfect mimicry, to reveal his hideous mouthparts. His mandibles, covered in fine spines, were only a centimeter away from Su Lin, just a little short of completely covering the human's soft, defenseless skin and frantically sucking up that enticing honey in great mouthfuls.

-Just as he had seen his powerful father and older brothers do to those pitiful, delicate members of the Dew Nest at a Blood Wing banquet many years ago.

Sucking.

Gnawing.

Swallowing.

Until those weak, sweet Zerg, whose only purpose was to serve as a source of honey, had been drained of so much that their cries faded, their bodies convulsed, and at last they slumped silently beneath the Blood Wings' enormous, scarlet, fearsome bodies.

Those memories, which Medises had once loathed and even found sickening, were now strangely cast in a rosy glow. The silver-haired Zerg finally realized, deeply and keenly, that the same despicable, base blood as that of his own kind truly flowed through his veins.

He craved that honey so badly he was going mad.

And yet...

"Senior, you'll help me, right?"

Su Lin's voice seemed to come from an extraordinarily distant place, but it instantly roused Medises's faltering reason.

Yet in the end, Medises still withdrew his open mouthparts, little by little. Su Lin should count himself lucky that he was only a larva who had not yet fully matured. He was so young that the taste of his first honey was actually quite mild, and because of that, its allure to a Blood Wing had not yet reached the point of making Medises lose control completely.

Medises thought.

"Don't be afraid. I'll take care of it."

He heard himself say to the young man in front of him in a steady voice.

"...Mm, thank you, Senior."

Su Lin kept his back to Medises and spoke gratefully.

But even as he spoke, he kept glancing cautiously out of the corner of his eye at the mirror beside him, clouded white with steam.

Only when the exceptionally blurry shadow in the mirror gradually returned from its frightening, distorted shape to the outline a human profile should have did Su Lin's heart shakily settle back into place.

Oh my god, that scared me to death, scared me to death, scared me to death.

Su Lin felt that his cheeks were wet, and he had no idea whether it was from the steam in the bathroom or because he had just been so scared that his face had broken out in a cold sweat.

What exactly was Senior going to do just now...

Forget it, don't think about it, don't think about it. Just pretend I don't know anything.

Su Lin swallowed, and when he turned around, his eyes were clear again.

As if he had never noticed anything strange about Medises just now.

A few minutes later-

The sound of running water came intermittently from the bathroom, where Su Lin was taking a shower.

Medises had told him to first wash off all the honey still on his body in preparation for the cleaning afterward.

While Su Lin rinsed the excess honey from his body, the silver-haired Zerg sat upright outside the door, gazing expressionlessly at his fingertips.

After a long while, he could finally no longer restrain the craving that came from his blood.

He licked the faint trace of sweetness remaining on his fingertip with great care... it was the single drop of honey he had obtained when he touched Su Lin just now.

So sweet.

The silver-haired Zerg lowered his eyes and sighed inwardly.

That drop of sweet honey was probably the most exquisite delicacy he had ever tasted in his life.

Chapter 23

A moment later, Su Lin came out of the bathroom.

Medises keenly smelled the dampness on the young man and that lingering hint of honeyed fragrance. Compared with before, the captivating scent had indeed grown much fainter after being washed with water. Yet Medises found this moment even harder to endure, because he now knew just how delicious Su Lin's first honey was.

And that mere taste was nowhere near enough to suppress his most primal desire. His throat even stung because of it.

Su Lin stopped not far from Medises.

"S-Senior."

He adjusted his collar with one hand, his gaze darting over Medises's silver eyes, which were now extremely pale.

There was a strange, inorganic quality to the Zerg's eyes, and the gaze shining from them made Su Lin feel a faint chill at the back of his neck.

Involuntarily, he once again remembered the blurry shadow he had seen in the mirror earlier.

The unease he had forcibly suppressed spread through Su Lin's heart once more.